Blazing The Night Sky
by sommerson
Summary: When Sera Blaise returns to Hogwarts for her 6th year, she doesn't know that she's in for an almighty few terms, packed with laughs, tears, drama and love. But after her recent trip to Greece, where she had no way to contact her friends, Sera might find that things between them are changing without her wanting them to, in particular betweem one best friend named Sirius Black. SB/OC
1. Chapter 1

I _hated_ the Welcome Back feast. It was a recent development on my part and I was probably the only one who did. But there was just so much oil, fat, sugar and salt. Everywhere. It was all over the roast potatoes, glistening from its oil bath with tiny mounds of salt. It was infecting the steak and kidney pies. It was brutally suffocating the puddings. The sticky dates literally oozed it.

My stomach started churning. I took deep steadying breaths.

"Sera?" came a concerned voice from beside me. Meet Alice McFarland; my best friend. She was staring at me with her muted blue eyes, her curly dark hair shrouding half her face. She'd been staring at me a lot lately.

I could understand why. I mean I wasn't going to pretend that I hadn't noticed the looks I had been getting all day. But it wasn't something that I was particularly enjoying. The fact was that over summer I had finally hit puberty. Meaning my period had come, my chest had sprouted and my hips widened. _So?_ I hear you asking. Well the thing is that Alice and I were sixth years at Hogwarts. In other words we were almost seventeen years old. _Ah…_ Yes, Ah.

I was quite relieved to be honest. I thought there was something seriously wrong going on with my body. Mum had assured me that she was also a 'late bloomer' as she called it but every holiday she would study me, when she thought I wasn't looking, with worry. She wasn't this late. She was so relieved when I told her that she admitted that she was on the verge of booking an appointment at St Mungos! _Oh the shame_.

I was also relieved to be rid of my monstrously masculine body that had been the subject of much teasing. It wasn't just that, which had pretty much forced me into being a tomboy after second year that had changed. I learnt over the summer of my newfound talent for singing.

But moving on. All of the rest of the girls were strangely wary of me as if I had some contagious bug that they would catch and steered clear of me. But Alice was exceptionally kind. Well, when I let her talk.

_Most of the girls recoiled at the savage looking plants in front of them. I wasn't one of them. Along with most of the boys, I shuffled forward eagerly to claim a pot. I wasn't particularly skilled at Herbology (bit of an understatement actually, I _sucked_) but I was always very enthusiastic. As expected, none of the girls volunteered to partner me for the rest of second year so I got stuck into it straight away._

_After a moment or two I noticed a small person shifting nervously beside me. I looked up to see a blue-eyed, dark-haired girl eyeing the pot in apprehension._

"_Hello, Alice," I murmured looking back down at the pot. _

"_Uh, hi, Bl-Sera," she mumbled still glaring at the plant and wincing when it moved too violently. I sighed._

"_You don't have to pretend, McFarland," I said to the leaves we were supposed to be pruning. "I know you've been forced to be my partner."_

"_Oh, um," she said shyly. "Actually, I chose to be your partner…"_

_I looked up in surprise. Her cheeks were tinged pink and she looked embarrassed. I felt a little ashamed of my assumption, but it was usually correct anyway so …_

"_Oh," was all I could say. "I, um, sorry."_

"_No. I am," she said, again causing me to look at her in alarm. She moved closer to me, still distancing herself from the crazy monster plant beside me. "I'm sorry for letting you sit in the shadows for so long. I should've stopped the other girls from being so ghastly to you. I hope you'll forgive me."_

_I think my eyes were actually welling up with tears. I couldn't get out a coherent sentence. Since day one, year one, I hadn't been very popular with the girls in our year. Mostly they ignored me completely but when we did communicate, I wasn't exactly friendly with them. I'd always had a … quick sort of wit. Or a sharp tongue as some people put it._

_Alice gave me a small smile before I pulled her into a hug, in the process forgetting the plant and whacking it with my forearm, which it then proceeded to attack._

From then on Alice and I had become fast friends.

My tomboy-ness was probably also how I became friends with the Marauders.

I had three very close friends. Alice, of course, as well as seventh years James Potter and Sirius Black. Two of the four infamous Marauders. Alice was also quite friendly with Lily Evans, the Head Girl this year and she was quite nice so we were loose friends too.

In Alice and I only had one other girl with us in our dorm. The twins who usually took up the other two beds had opted out of NEWTs. The other girl was Deidre Dalton. Neither Alice nor I particularly disliked Deidre but we never really bonded, like painting each other's toenails. She was more of a friend of the twins and a few girls in the year below. So basically, Alice and I were predicting we'd pretty much have a double this year.

But back to the feast!

Dumbledore had risen to his feet and piles of leftover food vanished from overused ladles. All heads turned to him and Alice gave me one last searching look before following suit.

"Now we have had you all fed and watered, welcome! First years welcome to your new home and all others welcome back! Now I must start off by mentioning that our caretaker…"

I zoned out. I had just realised that we only had two more years left here. I still had no _idea_ where I wanted to go or be after graduating, even after Professor McGonagall's extensive interrogations the year before. After the careers counselling meetings, I had just decided to pick the subjects I remotely liked and hope that whatever job I wanted needed those prerequisites and no more. But still. It was scary to think that in roughly eight months I would be a legal witch and in another, already starting my summer holidays again. And then back to school for our seventh year and then graduating and left clueless with no idea what to do and then probably living alone in an abandoned shack and then adopting my first stray kitty and then it would grow into a cat and then I'd become obsessed with cats and I'd become the crazy old cat lady at the end of the lane and then my very first cat would die of old age and I'd be weeping in a sea of feral cats! Ah!

Okay so maybe not. But it freaked me out when I thought about the future. Where I would be in ten years time. So I usually didn't think about it as it got me all stressed (maybe you caught on to that with the cat lady thing, huh).

A sudden scraping of benches alerted me to the end of Dumbledore's speech. I leapt up and joined the crush squeezing through the doors to the Entrance Hall.

"Are you _sure_ you're all right, Sera?" came Alice's tinkling voice from behind me. She placed her fragile hands on my shoulders. I glanced at her and gave her my best grin.

"Yep! Absolutely brilliant! Why'd you ask?" I said cheerfully, even though I felt absolutely sick to the stomach.

"Oh you just seemed totally out of it is all." I shook off the comment with a laugh but before I could comment, another more ostentatious laugh sounded near us as we waited for the staircase to reconnect with the rest of the Gryffindors.

"Ah the beautiful Sera Blaise!" announced Sirius with a sly smirk. James and himself came up behind us noisily. "How lovely to finally make your acquaintance!"

I scoffed, "Sirius, I've known you for six years. And we've been best friends for more than four."

"Oh … Someone's in a bad mood," giggled James.

"That's what we were just discussing before you arrived," said Alice a little testily.

"Um, James – " I said devilishly and shooting him a cheeky smirk. He looked suddenly anxious, " – you know that badge you're wearing…?"

"Uh, yeah?" he said still very confused.

"Well shouldn't you, you know, be what it says?"

"Oh! Thanks Sera!" he shouted sprinting off to take care of his head duties. We all laughed.

Frank Longbottom, Alice's boyfriend (he had asked her out at the beginning of summer, turned up and chatted with us for a flight of stairs before dragging Alice off. It was unusually quiet between Sirius and I for a while which was weird because we were almost always having quick wit competitions. To outsiders it might seem like arguing or flirting but we both knew better. Our playful banter was just trying to outshine each other. It was fun. But at that moment, no comment was made.

Just as we reached the portrait hole via a shortcut, Sirius stopped and turned to me with his sad puppy dog eyes.

"You didn't visit over summer like you said you would," he said with a slight pout. _Oops._ I had been trying to avoid this conversation with the Marauders. I had told them that I would indeed visit them over summer but with other things got in the way.

I went to Greece for all of the holidays save the first and last week (which was full of packing/repacking and seeing Alice). My brother, Noah, and I were staying with my Aunt, Uncle and cousin in their new resort they had bought. It was supposed to be a summer job thing, but it had ended up being mostly a holiday, sometimes waitressing poolside (i.e. twice in total – he-he yeah let's not mention that to Mum). Let's also just say that I had a _lot _of new experiences that summer. My cousin, Adela, had, once seeing that I was starting to fill out, embarked on giving me a full-fledged makeover: a three-month long makeover. She ran through everything from makeup application to clothes to beauty tips and procedures to walking and talking to flirting to kissing to *cough* other things to tanning… and more. Absolutely everything, she covered. So I was now officially a woman (in-um-*cough* every-ahem-sense of the *cough* word… Let's not discuss that now).

"Ha-ha," I laughed nervously. Although he obviously wasn't going to hold me to it, there was something in his misty grey eyes that told me that he was actually slightly pissed which threw me off a little. "Well – yeah – see about that – well – "

He just chuckled and stared at me amusedly. But then his gaze shifted down and around me.

"I guess you were a little busy, huh?" he said looking at me in the school uniform. I choked.

"Excuse me? Is Mr Sirius Black, resident ladies man of Hogwarts checking me out?" I accused unabashedly.

I knew my new appearance was going to get some taking used to by others but I just expected that he was going to let it pass and make some clever comment about his reputation or something. Or grin wolfishly or something and make some protective brotherly comment about me. What I didn't expect was a blush of colour to rise on his cheeks. I almost choked again.

"Anyway, I'm sorry I couldn't visit you guys," I said to change the path of the conversation. "I ended up going to Greece for all of the holidays and I didn't take Moo." Moo is my owl. He's black and white okay! Don't judge me.

He laughed like normal again and the awkwardness seemed to pass. As usual, he slipped his arm around my waist and hoisted mine across his shoulders, still holding onto my hand.

"_Pumpkin pasties_," Sirius said to the Fat Lady, guarding the portrait hole. She swung open to reveal the common room full of students sharing their holiday stories.

As we entered, a group of girls whipped their heads around and gawked at us. And I mean _gawked_. They were almost glaring at me. Soon enough almost the whole common room was watching us as Sirius guided me up to his dormitories. What the –?

Sirius, being used to this kind of attention simply gave a smirk and a wink to those watching.

"Huh," I said simply as we climbed past the fourth year dorms.

"Huh?" he asked.

"Not used to that kind of attention. Weird. Why?"

"Dunno. Probably 'cause they've noticed your new _smoking_ body!"

"Ha-ha." I was clearly not amused. Unlike my Marauder friends, I was not an attention seeker.

"It's all right love," Sirius said softly. "Nothing's going to change. You're just gonna look a little different doing it. It might help you with quidditch?" He always seemed to know what was on my mind. Not always the best thing.

"Ah…" I started anxiously. I hadn't yet mentioned to anyone but Alice, who I had spent all of the train ride with, about my decision to drop my position as chaser on the team. I was really scared to tell James, as he was the captain. "He-he. Um … Sirius?"

He looked around in panic as he swung open the door and entered into the room where Remus and Peter were unpacking things with their wands. The tone I was using was used when I had to tell him that I found out he was an Animagus. Yeah, that was one awkward conversation. But anyway …

"Sera?" he growled, scowling at me with eyebrows frowning. "What have you done?"

Remus looked up quizzically. I shifted nervously.

"He-he, well …" I checked that James was clear. "Where's Jamsie?"

"Uh," said Remus, checking out their handmade map of Hogwarts. "James Potter is in the Heads dorm."

"What?" I said astounded. I didn't know they got their own dorm! Ha-ha good change of topic: "I didn't know they got their own dorm!"

"Sera," Sirius uttered with a warning glance. "Stop getting off-track."

"Oh, right," I said, rubbing my neck nervously as I plonked onto Sirius' bed. "Well – deep breath – Ikindadecidednottoplayquiddt ichanymore'causeIhavetofocusonotherthin gs! Phew!"

Remus' expression didn't change and he said, "Come again?" but Sirius' face dropped about two shades in colour. I laughed anxiously again and looked to Remus to repeat, a lot slower this time, "I kinda decided not to play quidditch any more 'cause I have to focus on other things." This time Remus' jaw dropped.

"He-he, well … if that's all – " I said evasively, shuffling back to the door.

"Nuh-uh!" shouted Sirius, grabbing me by the waist, hoisting me over his shoulder and pretty much smacking me down onto Remus' neatly made bed. They were both peering down at me in concern. But before one of them could voice their confusion and worry, an almighty _BANG_ came from the doorway. We all snapped up to see James himself framed by the doorframe heaving with anger. Uh-oh.

"Ah …" I said lightly. I swear I saw Sirius' lip twinge in amusement before a light came on above my head and I turned to him gloomily. "Sirius, where's your mirror?"

"In my pock – oh," he said, a little too brightly. A short silence ensued before James lost it.

"MISS SERA JANE BLAISE!" he roared. _Oh dear._

"He-he, hi James! How's the dorm? Great? Oh that's great." I edged around him towards the door as he glared menacingly at me. "I'm great too. So – um – I'll see you later, ha-ha, bye!"

"STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, BLAISE!" I hung my head in shame. He seemed to take a while to calm himself enough to rationalise with the situation. Meanwhile I was cowering in anticipation of his rage. "Explain," he finally came out with.

I took a deep breath, "Okay, I know that you all may seem to be intellectually gifted and all and can balance school, quidditch and socialising, but I seem to have troubles and after the disaster that was last year," Sirius' previously expressionless face had taken on a dark look. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that, it was still touchy, "my abysmal OWL results along with harder NEWTs this year, I figured that I'd need to scratch one of them and seeing as school is kinda hard to avoid and a social life when friends with Alice and the Marauders is inevitable, it was quidditch." Wow. Said that in barely more than one breath: actually quite impressive.

"You know we're always here to help you out with your study, Sera," said Remus kindly.

"Yeah! And what was the deal with the OWLs?" said Sirius. "What did you get?"

"We wouldn't know, would we?" came James' voice again. "She barely wrote to us over summer, let alone visit like she said she would. At all." Ouch. Okay, now the guilt was really kicking in. I tried to push it away and I ignored James' comments. I was in Greece for goodness sake! Okay, well that's hardly an excuse.

"I know, thank you Remus, but you're all in seventh now and even you lot may have to do a _bit_ of study. It will just take off the stress to cancel my quidditch."

"Sera? What did you get in your OWLs?" said Sirius again.

I mumbled my results to the floor. James and Remus didn't hear me but Sirius just cracked up laughing. I glared at him fiercely as he stumbled around the room trying to control himself.

"You-ha-think that-ha-only one-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" he gasped. We all looked at him strangely. Remus tried again.

"What did you get, Sera?" he said softly, obviously trying to make up for Sirius' incredibly rude behaviour.

"I got one Outstanding, five Exceeds Expectations, two Acceptables and a Poor," I was forced to repeat, much to my horror. There was a short silence until Remus and James looked at each other and started full out laughing, just like Sirius.

"Humph. Well, if that's all that you can say then I don't think that you'll need my presence here anymore! Have a good year boys!" And I swept from the room, rather dramatically and suavely I might add. The laughing stopped.

"Well," I heard Sirius' voice drift down from above as I was near the fifth-level landing, "I for one, definitely didn't see that one coming. Think she's PMS-ing?"

I heard Remus sigh heavily and saying, "I wouldn't bring that up, Padfoot. I'm sure she's trying to deal – " before I heard no more and angrily stomped up all the way to my dormitory on the sixth-bloody-floor.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Disclaimer (applies to entire story) - although I bloody wish I did, I am not the owner of Harry Potter :(**

**Warning: Tiny, tiny bit of language in this chapter. **

**Please, please, please let me know what you guys think! (: I would love the feedback & reviews so much!**

**Enjoy**

**XOXO**

I had just plonked myself down next to Alice (a notorious morning person – curse them all!) when Professor McGonagall turned up with the schedules. Alice was chirpily sipping her pumpkin juice and was scanning the latest _Witch Weekly_, choosing to leave me to groan at the time alone. She knew me well. No one wanted to interfere with me before I got some form of caffeine into my system.

"Ah yes, Miss McFarland," said Minnie as I laboriously poured a large amount of coffee into my goblet. "I see you've signed up for Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology, Defence …" _Blah blah blah. _Finally, with Alice merrily running through her classes and organising her textbooks and parchment, Minnie turned to me. "Yes, Miss Blaise. Charms, Transfiguration, Potions, Defence, Arithmancy and History of Magic; is that correct?" I nodded. "I was very pleased with your History of Magic result, I must say. Now here you are." She handed me my schedule and strode away down the table.

I think that I was the only student in the history of Professor Binn's long teaching career to have ever actually liked the subject of History of Magic. Shocking, I know. But seriously, who doesn't want to learn about all the old wacky hooligans and all their mischief? It's just so much fun!

It was the one subject I had got an Outstanding in. I seemed to have quite a flair for it. It was also a class that at NEWT level was changed to a mixed class of sixth and seventh years. It was the same with Arithmancy. Apparently it was also the same for Astronomy and Divination but I wouldn't actually know about those two seeing as I wasn't taking them (I was horrible at Astronomy. I got a Poor on it in OWLs).

Immediately, Alice took it and compared them. I just continued to gulp my coffee. Breakfast was always a dilemma. Almost everything apart from bland cereal had fats and sugars in it. Coffee was really my indulgence each day so I had to cut back on so many calories for breakfast. I resigned to a small mound of cereal and poured a bit of low fat milk over it.

Alice handed back my timetable along with her own wordlessly for me to examine it. Turns out we had four of our six classes together. I only had History of Magic (understandable) and Potions (oh damn – who shall I partner?) on my own. First up we had charms. And on Friday mornings I had a double free period! Score! That's a good sleep in before break and day classes. Yes! Alice had her double Thursday mornings when I had Potions. Go us!

"Pretty awesome timetables this year, don't you think?" I commented cheerfully. Alice looked up at me quickly.

"Wow!" she said staring at me. "That was quick!"

"What?" I said, confused.

"Well usually it takes you ages to get over a bad mood, especially in the mornings. And you were in one hell of a tizz before bed last night. You were so grumpy. I almost wanted to knock you out so you would shut up."

I let that threat of violence slide and simply shrugged. That was true. "Guess these timetables are just that good." She laughed.

"Is that all you're eating?" she asked, nodding to my measly bowl of cereal.

"Yeah, I'm trying to be good this year." She frowned but before she could say anything, in came the Marauders.

"Sera being good? What universe are you in?" remarked Sirius as he slipped onto the bench, next to me. Remus, Peter and James (still sending me unhappy looks) sat opposite us, all clutching their new timetables.

"Ha-ha," I said sarcastically and snatched Sirius' schedule as they all loaded their plates full of fatty bacon and cholesterol filled eggs. Gross.

Turns out I had two classes with Sirius, even though he was a seventh-year.

"Why the _hell_ are you taking History of Magic?"

"You almost sound like Minnie, 'Mr Black, why in the world are you still taking History of Magic?'"

"Answer the question."

"Free sleepy time." I laughed.

Also turns out that James was with Sirius, Alice and I for Arithmancy. And I had two free periods with Remus (good, he can tutor me) and one with James so he can help me with my Transfiguration. Oh and Sirius shares one with Remus and I too. Yep, still getting Remus to tutor me.

James didn't say a word when I had pointed all of this out. I looked to Sirius, a little hurt.

"He's still sulking about your quidditch decision."

"Oh." I was about to ask him why James was so very upset about my leaving because our team wasn't really to suffer and how to apologise best when Lily entered the hall. I knew this because James' Lilydar went off and he snapped his head up. She was looking very conflicted. I could guess why.

Lily's best friend Mary Macdonald had been attacked with Dark Arts by the Slytherin Mulciber at the end of last year and hadn't been allowed to return for her final year. It was safer for her to be at home with her family than at risk of further harm for being muggle-born at school. What made me angry was that Mulciber was still allowed to return. What was with that?

But anyway, Mary's absence left Lily in an awkward position. The only other people that Lily could call friends were Alice and I. And we were currently sitting with her loathed stalker, James, and his also loathed best friend, Sirius. _Awkward_.

She slowly made her way down the long table before Minnie got to her and she took an extra long time talking to her. James was trying to inconspicuously watch her out of the corner of his eye but it ended up looking like he was having a massive eye spasm. After a few minutes watching this Sirius and I burst out laughing and James scowled at me more than he already was. I was so busy trying to calm myself that I didn't realise that Lily had finally made her way to our table.

"Um, hi Alice, Sera," she said nervously and picking at the skirt of her uniform. We both smiled back at her and I gave her a little wave before sculling more coffee. "Can I – um…"

"Of course," said Alice, patting the spot next to her. James was gazing at Lily in amazement, his mouth hanging open and his fork halfway from his plate. His eyes were starting to glaze over.

"_Hem-hem, hem-hem, hem._" I coughed. It was sad really that we had to have a coded cough to snap James out of his Lily fantasies. He shook his head and he hurriedly started eating his bacon, still a little dazed. I scoffed.

Remus had now started conversation with Lily and she seemed a lot more relaxed. James promptly started talking over zealously to Peter who wasn't even bothering to pay attention and kept shovelling endless amounts of food into his enormous gob. Alice, Sirius and I all exchanged looks of amusement and had to stifle our chortling.

I was looked up at the owls arriving with the post, trying to spot Moo with the typical forgotten belongings package. I had just spotted him when I heard Lily's voice rising. I quickly tuned in, concerned.

"Could you please not be so insolent all the time, Potter?" she seethed. We all sat back, ready for the usual argument breaking out.

"What have I done this time dear Evans?" he asked testily. It was a bit out of character for him to be so grumpy on the first morning but I was guessing that my quidditch announcement was still getting at him and the stress of his last year with Lily was eating away at him. She looked a little taken aback at his rough answer.

"Well – I – I was merely commenting on your absolute lack of respect for other's conversations as you are rudely talking to Peter in such a volume that I'm surprised that the Giant Squid doesn't hear."

"Actually, my dear Lilyflower, the Giant Squid can hear me perfectly well and could still hear me if I was whispering to Peter as he has truly impeccable hearing, unmatched by any other magical being in the world and currently knows all secrets at Hogwarts." _Wow. James really isn't in the best mood this morning. Must be more than me._

"What? Potter, don't talk about such insufferable nonsense!"

"Actually, Evans," came Sirius' determinedly smooth voice from beside me. "He's right. We tested it out."

Lily gaped at Sirius in shock for a second before recovering. "Well he still shouldn't have used such a disrespectful tone with his fellow head student." _Her _logic_ isn't so great this morning._

"Well that's funny," said James heatedly. "A bit of a case of the pot calling the kettle black there!" … _? _Moo landed on the table at that moment and started pecking me to untie the package. Talk about bad timing. I ignored him, still too transfixed by James and Lily.

"Are you calling me a hypocrite Potter?" Lily yelled, standing up abruptly. _Okay, James – what the hell is up?_ Alice, Remus and I all looked at each other in alarm. Peter was simply mesmerised by the action and Sirius seemed to be focused on staring Lily down.

"Yeah I am!" James jumped up as well. _Whoa. Where's the creepy Lily-obsessed stalker we all love? _"I find that being insulted and yelled at in '_that tone_' for being chosen as the Head Boy, when it's completely out of my hands, is a little insensitive!" _Okay found the reason for the grumpiness. _

"You can't hold that against me, I was tired and irritable!"

"Yeah! And that's your excuse for every bloody time I talk to you!"

"Well I'm sorry that I'm the only one not throwing myself at your feet and licking your shoes!"

"Hey! What about – " Alice and I protested but James overrode us and we were back to our dazed spectating position.

"All I ever ask is that you talk to me like a human being!"

"No you don't! You ask me out! That's a _little_ more!"

"I haven't asked you out for six months! Are you still seriously under the impression that I _want_ to ask you out?" James practically screamed. There was a short silence where James was breathing very shallowly and Lily had an expression on her face similar to that of someone clubbed over the head by a beater's bat.

"Well," she said, at a loss for words. "I – huh."

All eyes in the Great Hall were darting between the two, waiting for Lily's usual witty, enraged comment and unique hex/jinx. But all she did was blink rapidly, staring at her plate. James simply stared straight at her. Even with a face full of hostility, it couldn't hide the adoration beaming from his eyes. Hah! Over her? No way!

"Well Potter. I'm sorry for … you know." And she grabbed her things and almost ran from the Hall.

James stood there for a few seconds more before lowering himself shakily to the bench. Talk erupted in the Hall all at once and people seemed to be chatting extra loudly as if to make up for their lack of noise minutes before. I quickly untied the package from the impatient Moo.

Alice seemed to have come to a decision on an internal debate and quickly sprang up to find Lily. We smiled sadly at each other as she left.

It was silent at the table for a few more minutes.

"Jamsie?" I asked tentatively. He sighed and looked up at me. He looked close to tears. "Um, I'm sorry for the whole quidditch thing."

He smiled at me. He looked so unhappy. "That's alright Tabby," (a nickname the Marauder's had come up for me so I would fit in with theirs. It had something to do with my love of cats. Oh god! I might actually turn into a crazy cat lady!) "I did overreact a bit. It was just that I had just fought with Lily and you, me and Gwenog were such a good team."

"Aw, Prongs," I said, attempting to hug him over the pumpkin juice jug. He laughed again. He was looking a little happier at least. "But hey, look at the bright side!"

"What bright side?" he grumbled to his freshly buttered toast.

"Lily apologised for the first time ever," I stated as if it was the clearest thing in the world. His head snapped up, amazement evident in his eyes.

'Oh my Godric …" he breathed. Even Remus looked surprised at my realisation.

"Wow," came from Sirius.

"Yeah …" Peter.

"That's …" Remus.

"Cheer up Jamsie! I actually think that maybe that little argument was a good thing."

"You do? How?" he asked incredulously.

"Not being so obnoxiously lovey-dovey with her confused her and challenging what she thought was pretty much fact caused her to reconsider her view of you."

"So what do I do now? Keep … what was it? 'Challenging her?'"

"No!" shouted Remus and I at the same time. I started gathering my bag and standing up for Charms as I dived into the plan that I had devised many years ago.

"You have to act a little more distant and just like acquaintances than like you're madly in love with her. Then she'll get really befuddled 'cause she had no idea where the attention's gone! Then she'll start analysing everything properly without her preconceived prejudice and then she'll realise that you're actually decent and maybe even fall in love with you."

"When did you get so smart?" asked Sirius, pinching my waist playfully.

"About the time she started looking so good?" came a voice from behind me. I couldn't help blushing. I looked around to find a tall, muscled blonde guy looking down at me with his insanely handsome face. My blush spread across my face. Hello Sebastian Edgecombe, one of the most attractive guys in the school. He was a seventh-year Ravenclaw and-

"Excuse me?" said Sirius gruffly. I looked across to find Sirius standing and glaring at Sebastian. _Whoa, scary_, was the first thing that crossed my mind.

"Sirius," Sebastian acknowledged with a nod, a little shortly. They were both the same height so they could glare at each other easily; Sirius continued to stare at him menacingly, which was really weird but also really terrifying. He had positioned him self slightly in front of me as if protecting me. I found that seriously annoying. Since when did Ineed his help? He was just going to scare away anyone I wanted to be friends with.

"What's up Edgecombe?" he asked, brusquely again. Sebastian looked at him again looking pissed off.

"Do you want to show me to my next class, Sebastian?" I asked forcefully, pushing past Sirius a little roughly. He gaped at me. I sent him a face that clearly said _Stop it and go away!_ He looked a touch offended.

"I sure do, Sera," Sebastian said grinning at me and taking my arm to lead me away. Sirius was left staring after us while the other Marauders finished with their breakfast.

**{Sirius POV}**

Man, I didn't know how much shit I had in my trunks until I had to lift them. I'd only just managed to manoeuver my trolley through the pillar wall into Platform 9 ¾ behind James and getting them into the luggage racks was agony, even with my sweet muscles.

As usual, a few girls had flirted with me as I had made my way to our usual compartment and Prongs had headed off to the prefect compartment. One or two caught my eye, although they were a little desperate.

Moony greeted me the usual way, a nod of his head, which was stuck in some book called _the Lord of the Rings_.

"Where's Wormtail?" I asked, collapsing onto the seat.

"Trolley."

"Typical Wormy," I laughed.

"Yeah," said Moony vaguely, not really paying attention.

"So just us two, huh," I started, clearly very bored. Maybe Remus would play a game with me.

"No."

"What?"

"I want to read Padfoot, I'm not playing a game with you. Go find Tabby or something." Damn. He knows me too well.

"Huh. Well maybe I shall." I said and exited the compartment.

If Sera wasn't with us already then she was with Alice McFarland: her other best friend. I had seen Alice's compartment on the way, quite near the front of the train, so I started the trek up to the other side. It took me a little longer than usual as birds kept 'falling' out of their compartments and slamming into me. So discreet, they were.

But once I had found Sera, I really found Sera and it certainly wasn't a Sera that I remembered.

The Sera that I remembered from a few months back was average height and scrawny, had flat un-styled dark hair, wore zero makeup, boring but comfortable ripped jeans and hoodies and grinned with her yellowed teeth in a fairly overbearing, not-exactly-attractive way.

The Sera I saw before me was evidently still the same Sera. She still had her Sera nose and her small Sera lips, her Sera eyes and overall mannerisms and everything … but, well this Sera was different. She had grown a bit taller, probably five foot seven, and had _curves_. A real womanly rack and hips and all were there, with a brown tan. Her hair was redone; it was now choppily cut into wavy layers and had a side/front fringe. The colour was the same dark shine but it was highlighted with a sort of auburn colour in places. She was wearing a pair of damn short denim shorts and a tank, which just drew more attention to her new appearance. Were her legs always that effing long?

I cast a disillusionment charm so I could creep closer and gawk at what she had done to herself without her seeing me. She was wearing makeup. SERA JANE 'TABBY' BLAISE was wearing…makeup. I was…just…what? She was smiling with pearly whites somewhat attractively at Alice who was sitting completely rigid, just staring at her, her mouth open. It's probably what I looked like. She didn't seem to notice as her makeup rimmed turquoise eyes were frequently glazing over, like she was taking pauses in a story. What the-?

I don't know how long I was just gawking at her, completely shell-shocked and a little confused, before an effing Slytherin toppled into me.

It was Mulciber. He was supposed to be one of the smarter ones but his confused expression made him look like a startled troll and almost made me roar with laughter. To avoid detection by Sera, I sneaked away before taking off my enchantment. Mulciber had turned to notice her and his expression was surprised to say the least. Slimy bastard.

I was about to lash out at him for being just that when I saw Peter come down the train, arms full of food.


End file.
